


(Don't) Look Back in Anger

by legendofthesevenstars



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Pre-Canon, Verdant Wind Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 10:30:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20655740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legendofthesevenstars/pseuds/legendofthesevenstars
Summary: On the cusp of another major transition in his life, Claude tries to reconcile his nostalgia for his childhood home with the difficulties he has faced since his earliest youth. As much as he loved living there, it's hard to block out the bad memories.SPOILERS for Verdant Wind.





	(Don't) Look Back in Anger

Having grown up in one country and matured in another, Claude speaks and thinks in two tongues. He learned both languages from a young age, and in principle, Almyran isn’t that different from the common speech of Fódlan, being especially similar to the Leicester dialect. Yet it _is_ undeniably different. Some words feel wrong in Fódlan’s language, just as some words feel wrong in Almyran.

But Claude never slips. He’s used to expressing himself in Fódlan’s language; it’s been five long years since he even lived in Almyra, five years since he ran away to his mother’s homeland. He has an obvious Leicester accent and wonders if he ever really had an Almyran one. He shed his royal name and now bears the name Riegan. Not that he minds—it’s a fitting tribute to his mother’s bravery and strength. Still, some things are better said in the language he spoke as a child, the one in which he still dreams.

—

_feasts_

The Fódlan word “feast” hardly begins to cover the kinds of meals Almyrans ate on special occasions. There must have been food for the entire Alliance and then more. Papa took Claude by the hand and led him into the kitchen to watch the chefs as they worked, robes swishing, shouting orders, wiping sweat from their foreheads, all the while passing a melody from person to person, singing pieces of a larger song in the same way that they all collaborated on that big, perfect dinner. When it was time to receive guests, Papa’s laughter rang in the entryway, his gut shaking with his joviality, slapping friends on the back and giving dignitaries firm handshakes. Claude looked up at him with a smile only half as wide as his goofy grin. He had always been a bit shy as a child, probably because his mother was reserved, too.

Mama always seemed to get sick around the time of the feasts. She retreated to her room, and servants brought her dinner. She told Claude that she had an illness passed down from Grandma, and that sometimes she had to rest, and not to worry about her.

“Where’s your ghost of a wife?” Papa’s friends teased him. “‘Sick’ again?”

“Nah, she’s too scared to come out. She knows we’d just walk all over her.”

Papa’s expression twisted and he shifted uncomfortably, but he never said anything to contradict them, instead trying to change the topic. Claude protested that Mama _was_ sick, and she would be sitting at the table if she were well, but Papa told him to hush. Mama was strong, brave, kind, and worthy of respect. What did it matter if she got sick every now and then? Nobody’s health was perfect. It only dawned on him later that she _always_ got “sick” whenever visitors were set to come, and she never complained about a hereditary illness at any other time. Maybe it was because they were all men, and none of them brought their wives with them. While he wasn’t exactly _wrong_ about that, and they would have done well to have some women around who weren’t servants, the whole truth was far uglier. He doesn’t know if he’s right about this, but he suspects she pulled that act for her son’s sake, not for hers.

Papa’s friends largely ignored Claude. They didn’t talk to him, and many avoided even looking at him. The only one who consistently made sure to spend time with him was Papa’s good friend Nader. Nader was cheerful like Papa, with a big grin and a raspy laugh like wyvern skin, but his amber eyes blazed ardently, like those of a true warrior. He wasn’t much taller than Papa, but he was far more muscular, and his face and arms bore a few scars. Whenever he entered a room, everyone’s eyes went to him, he was that impressive. Not to mention that he could put away more food than anyone, even Papa. Of course, Claude didn’t know back then that his father was of higher status than Nader, or that Nader was a legendary, fearsome warrior. He didn’t realize that some of his father’s friends were commoners, or that those commoners sat next to esteemed diplomats. Food was the great equalizer: every man sat around the same table shoveling bowls of spiced meat, vegetables, and grains in his maw.

“You have to eat everything on your plate to be a big and strong Almyran warrior,” Nader always told him. And Claude did. He ate as much as he could and asked for seconds. He ate until he thought he might fall over. Mama might have scolded him for eating too much, but when he saw Papa’s and Nader’s pride, he couldn’t help but be proud himself of how stuffed he was.

After the meal, everyone sat around the table and talked, or they went outside to sweat off the food with some exercise. Nader gave Claude rides on his shoulders, or Papa tied Claude to a horse and dragged him through the dirt. The men got in fistfights with each other or held archery contests; he always thought Mama should be there for the latter because of her skill in archery. Alongside bare fists, bows and axes were the Almyran weapons of choice. There was an interesting contrast between those two weapons. Axes were all about brute force—close one-on-one combat—whereas a bow could be shot from a distance, unexpected, from the shadows. Both weapons appealed to Claude. The axe reflected the raw power of his father and Nader, but the bow and arrow held the calculating mystery of his mother. She was never quite as open as his father, but she possessed an intelligent mind and an indomitable spirit. She was quiet and stern, but not dispassionate, not in the slightest. Though it was subdued, she was full of love.

Claude wasn’t allowed to join in on any sort of training until he turned eight, when his parents finally agreed he could begin studying archery. He was given a Claude-sized wooden bow as one of his birthday presents and sent outside with Nader. Papa insisted that he had something important to discuss with one of the guests, but Claude knew he hadn’t come out to help only because he wasn’t nearly as skilled with a bow. Not that Claude minded—he welcomed any excuse to spend time with Nader.

“Nice present, huh,” Nader joked. “Your old man wants you to learn archery. ‘Go out there and work, runt.’”

He imitated Father well, right down to the term of endearment; Claude suppressed a giggle.

“Of course, he’s got good intentions for ya. It’s only traditional you should start with a bow or an axe. You’re a little too small for an axe, but the right size for a bow.”

“Hey!” Claude frowned, crossing his arms. “I’m not that small.” He had grown a half a head in the past year.

Nader laughed. “Your old man was saying so right up ’til he turned seventeen. I don’t think you’ll be much taller than him. Come on, let’s get started.”

After he set up the wooden target, Nader knelt behind Claude and positioned Claude’s hands properly on the bow.

“Left hand here. Right hand there. Three fingers here—no, not your little finger—yep, just like that. Okay, now put your elbow up in the air. See, so that when you pull the bow back”—he motioned to demonstrate—“your hand goes toward the corner of your mouth, and that ensures your bows will always travel straight. Watch me.” He motioned pulling the bowstring back. “And then you let it go like that. Give it a try.”

Claude pulled the string back, then let go. It was a very crooked first attempt, with little force behind it, and the arrow missed the board entirely.

“Give it another try. Line yourself up with your target.”

Claude stepped to the side so that he was in line with the bullseye.

“And you let go a little late. It has to be instant.”

Claude repositioned the arrow, pulled the bowstring tauter, and freed it. The arrow sped toward the bottom left corner of the board.

“Not bad! You got a good shot that time.” A pat on the shoulder, followed by Papa’s laugh in the distance. They were all coming outside already.

Claude turned around to face Nader. “Do I have to train on my birthday? Especially when I just want cake?” It was his favorite kind, with black walnuts baked into it and slivered almonds and powdered sugar on the top. He knew it was that cake because he had smelled the spices and nuts from the kitchen, and he’d thought about it all through dinner.

“They’re all waiting on you, kid. They want you to get a bullseye.”

Claude swallowed. He hated expectations, because he always felt the need to meet them even if he wasn’t required to. He took up the bow and tried another shot, his hands shaking. He was just a boy, and small for his age. It would be a while before he developed an archer’s control.

“Do I get a reward if I can make the bullseye?”

“No reward but knowing that it’s possible,” Nader said after Claude fired another arrow, narrowly missing the bullseye. “And your dessert.”

“And what else?” He aligned the next arrow with the curve of the bow.

“Elbow up, remember. The chance to witness the fights.”

“And?”

“I heard they’re starting a fire and they’re going to sing. But only if you make that bullseye.”

Claude fired another arrow. Off again, just slightly. Sure, the promises of dessert, fighting, fires, and singing could have lured him away from the target board. He knew Nader was fibbing, that everyone would laugh, talk, and sing even if Claude failed to hit the bullseye. But Claude was smart enough to understand that he would only fully enjoy the celebration if he had met their, and his own, expectations.

He pulled back the string and let the arrow fly. It pierced the center of the board. His heart did a backflip, and at first, he didn’t register his father and his friends cheering. Open-mouthed, he turned to face Nader, who gestured to the small crowd at the foot of the steps of the side entrance. Claude gathered his shock into a smile and sprinted into Papa’s arms.

“Look at you, runt!” Papa knelt down to squeeze him. “Some little warrior you are!”

Claude felt a little embarrassed that Papa had called him “runt” in front of the others, but a chorus of masculine voices assented, and the sudden praise warmed him. He had never been so much as acknowledged by any of Papa’s friends, but when Papa released him from his embrace, he saw that all eyes were on him now.

“How about some dessert to celebrate?” Papa said as he stood up.

Claude could never disagree with that. The cake tasted even better after his little victory, and he even gathered the courage to join in on the songs that evening.

As he got older, he continued to cherish the memory of that particular feast. It had been the first time he’d picked up a bow and arrow, and Nader had truly done him a great service that day. Some of Papa’s friends began to smile at him. One or two of them even asked him how he was doing. And when he was older, he joined in on the archery contests. If he hadn’t gotten that bullseye, he wouldn’t recall that same sense of togetherness that he so treasured.

When he was a younger teen living in the Alliance, cookbooks were along his breadth of reading material, and he tried his best to replicate the dishes he remembered from childhood. Meals always felt so small in Fódlan. Whenever he risked taking seconds, Uncle Godfrey shot him a glance of disdain. Not to mention Grandpa’s face at his table manners. Special occasions weren’t so special except that you got to see people you didn’t see very often but whom you really didn’t want to see anyway. In Fódlan, people liked to pretend that feasts were about togetherness, but mostly they were a formality, being a chance for nobles to talk about how great they (and nobody else) thought they were.

Not that the feasts in Almyra had really been about togetherness either. Before the day he’d become an archer, no one had acknowledged his presence. And his mother had spent every feast locked in her room. What would it look like to have a feast where nobody was excluded, and you could also eat as much as you wanted? He hopes that one day he can be a guest at a feast like that.

—

_faith_

To Claude, “faith” doesn’t center on just one deity. Divinity is different in Almyra, or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that there is no divinity. The gods and goddesses of Almyran legend don’t meddle directly in the affairs of the living. They protect Nature so that humans can thrive, like the deer that guard the Alliance, or the benevolent moon, waned to a crescent in his Crest. Almyran religion has no creed; its deities expect no tributes. It’s up to the people to decide for themselves where their belief lies.

In Fódlan, followers of the Church of Seiros rely on their Goddess when they falter or need help. They pray when someone is in trouble, or if they themselves are in trouble. But no god or goddess ever stopped Almyrans from looking down on him for his green eyes, or citizens of the Alliance from looking down on him for his dark skin.

“They’re just jealous of your green eyes,” Papa always told him. “Your mama’s pretty green eyes. Don’t you ever be ashamed of them. Be proud of who you are.”

Claude tried to be proud. He tried to fight back whenever strangers disparaged him. They called him many rude names a child never should have heard. He especially grew to hate that awful, awful word, _bastard_. He didn’t know what it meant, because he was only five, but he heard the malice behind the word, heard how it dripped with venom. Usually, he countered with insults that other people had applied to him, shocking the stranger and giving him the opportunity to return to whatever safety was nearest. He always felt guilty afterward—Mama and Papa probably wouldn’t like that he’d spoken that way. All the same, there was no reason for people he didn’t know to be so mean.

And they continued to be cruel. Mama and Papa told him that those people were wrong. He knew they were wrong, but he still wanted to understand why people could act like that. Mama had told him that when the people of Fódlan were in trouble, they would pray to the Goddess. Claude knew very little about the Goddess, but he resolved to try praying. Not just because he had Fódlan blood in him, but also because his own actions weren’t doing any good, and he didn’t know how else he could fight back. If only he knew what some of those nasty curses meant, then he could explain that he wasn’t those things that they said he was.

In his room one evening, before Father arrived to tell him a bedtime story, Claude knelt on the floor and prayed.

“Miss Goddess, if you can hear me right now, can you please make people stop being mean to me? I want to make friends. I want people to look at me like they would anyone else. I don’t have anyone except Father and Mother. And Nader. I don’t know anyone the same age as me. I want other kids to just give me a chance. Thank you, Miss Goddess. I hope you can do that for me.”

“Amen,” Papa said as he opened the door.

Claude jumped. “Papa?”

“I don’t think that’s quite how prayer goes, runt.” He sat down on the bed and ruffled Claude’s hair. Claude climbed up to sit next to him. “Usually, you’re a bit more formal when you talk to a goddess.”

“Did I say something bad?”

Father shook his head. “No, little one, that was a beautiful prayer. But you know neither your mama nor I put much faith in gods. I don’t think prayer’s any substitute for you trying to teach those fools who pick on you a lesson.

“And I’m sure Nader would be flattered to hear you included him in your prayer.” He laughed his belly laugh again.

“Papa, what does ‘bastard’ mean?”

His face fell. “Where did you hear that? That’s a very bad word, not to be repeated. Never call somebody that.”

“Just tell me what it means. Please?”

“It means…” He paused for a moment, then continued, reluctantly, “…that your parents weren’t married when you were in your mother’s belly, so you have no right to any inheritance. Basically, people don’t acknowledge you. They think you aren’t real.”

“But you and Mama were married before I was born. Right?”

“Yes, and we still are. She’s the Queen of Almyra, and your mother.”

“Then why do people call me that?”

“They call you that because they’re jealous. Lots of people who aren’t even distantly related to us wish they were in charge. But you’re _my_ son, and you have the right to the throne. Not to mention you’ve got your mama’s Crest, so if it ever gets dangerous around here, you’d be able to inherit a position in her noble house.”

Claude wasn’t too concerned about any of that. He didn’t think it would get too dangerous as long as Papa and Mama stayed with him. But he still wasn’t convinced that that was the only reason people hated him so much. Why would they keep harassing him if they knew he was the king’s son?

“Tell me, Papa, did I do something wrong?”

“You didn’t do a single thing wrong. They have no power, and they want to blame their situation on someone. But you don’t have to give in to them. Keep standing up for yourself and telling the truth. Some people’s minds will open to the truth, and some minds will always stay closed.”

“So kids are jealous of what I have.” He lowered his head. “That’s why no one wants to be my friend.”

Papa opened his mouth to say something, but closed it. His face grew serious. He stared at the floor for a while. Claude remained silent too. Then Papa stood up suddenly, hanging his head, bid Claude good night, and left. Claude could hear him sigh as he walked down the hall.

After a while, Claude forgot the Goddess. His prayers never brought him a friend or made people more accepting. At first, prayer had calmed him, because it was as if he were speaking to someone who would listen no matter what. Now, he had grown weary of placing faith in someone who clearly wasn’t listening. Wasn’t reliance the whole point of faith? Why rely on someone who couldn’t do anything for you? It confused him.

Papa and Mama continued to refrain from teaching him anything about religion, so Claude read about Almyran traditions on his own. Almyrans thanked Nature for its blessings and bounty. Claude understood that right away. Nature and the world around him were tangible things he could rely on, constant and steady things that followed patterns of change. The sky attracted his attention most of all, and he took to watching the stars and the moon at night. The moon and sun were huge, and the stars myriad, and in time he came to feel safe underneath the night sky, as if it were watching him in return. In his mind, he still refers to the moon as a “goddess” in Almyran. The Almyran equivalent of “goddess” differs from the proper title used by the Church of Seiros. In Almyran, the word shares its root with the word “love.”

The moon loved him even when his green eyes were despised, bathed his hated skin in the same silvery light as everyone else’s. The stars loved him with the intensity of Papa and Mama, watched over him when he cried alone in his room at night, ears and heart stinging with the echo of that vile, awful word, _bastard_.

—

_friends_

Friendship was complicated for Claude. So many people never approached him, maintaining suspicion of him. Even those who were polite kept him at a distance, and he mirrored that distance. The possibility of closeness both terrified and delighted him. The person he called a friend could without warning become the person who could try to take his life.

So he had to be prepared for anything. When he was young, his mother told him about poisons, traps, and all manner of schemes. He continued reading about tactics and trickery when he was an older child and into his teenage years, though he never got a chance to use that knowledge. He was rarely allowed to leave the house unaccompanied, even if he could fend for himself, so he was never in much danger. On the other hand, no one ever offered to be his friend, neither implicitly nor openly, and if he had more than one amicable conversation with someone outside of Houses Riegan and Daphnel, it was a coincidence.

It wasn’t that the people of Fódlan were cold. There were warmhearted people in Fódlan, just as there had been cruel people back in Almyra. Claude just thought of friendship in a slightly different way from everyone else. Papa had been friendly with a large circle of people, but he had only truly trusted and loved a select few. And he had loved them as strongly as he had loved his family. Friendship between Almyran warriors was about the challenges that both men had weathered. A friend wasn’t just the man you laughed alongside at feasts. A friend was someone for whom you would give everything, someone you would kill to avenge if he fell in battle. Warriors’ bonds were earnest and intimate, and the vow of deep friendship couldn’t be extended to just anyone.

He was irritated that people in Fódlan didn’t take the word as seriously as he did. Their language differentiated between “friend” and “acquaintance,” but neither term had any sincerity behind it. People would refer to almost anyone as a friend or acquaintance in conversation, but no one addressed their friend as their friend directly. If you loved someone that deeply, you would remind them of the strength of your relationship. _My friend._ He never realized how those two words had made him smile, even if he had only ever heard them exchanged between Papa and his friends.

Semantics aside, he had the same problem in Fódlan as he’d had in Almyra: No one loved him except his parents. There was an Almyran expression, _love like the moon for the earth_, an unconditional, shining love. He loved them like the moon loved the earth, and they loved him in return. But there was never anyone in Fódlan about whom he felt that way. Not even the family he did have there. Upon his arrival in House Riegan, he was snubbed by Uncle Godfrey—who had never been close to Mama, according to her—and Grandpa, though he wasn’t unkind, adopted the same distance. He thought they hated him, even though it was really his mother they resented.

Following House Riegan’s cold reception, the closest he had to a friend in the Alliance in his early teenage years was his swordmaster, Judith von Daphnel. He spent some time with Grandpa, sure, if sitting in chairs reading in silence counted as “getting to know each other.” He still wasn’t entirely convinced Claude was his grandson, even after he’d showed him Mama’s house ring with the Crest of Riegan engraved in it. His Crest was actually going to have to manifest in public before Grandpa believed him. The trouble was he never got into many situations when it would. Any time he needed that self-healing power, it failed to surface. He crushed his finger under a stack of encyclopedias that he dropped on his bed and spilled a particularly corrosive chemical on his thighs that burned through his pants to his skin, but never would his Crest help with recovery. It was always Judith who came and cleaned up his messes.

He spent a fair amount of time at her home training and studying, considering his own family didn’t exactly _want_ him around. He was half-reading a book one morning in her home. She’d insisted he take a break after he’d lost focus during training and suffered a cut on his forearm. She never went off on him for his mistakes—even the burn on his thighs that had left a scar—only scolded him lightly in a manner not unlike his mother’s affectionate tongue-clicking and went back to polishing a sword.

He was only half-reading the book because it was fiction; she had advised him to read something other than tactical manuals. The plot followed an Alliance warlord and his strategist. Claude wanted to believe that he was more annoyed with the flaws in the strategist’s methods than he was envious of the close relationship between the strategist and warlord.

“Judith,” he started, looking at her out of his peripheral vision.

She didn’t look up from her sword. “Yes, boy?”

“You knew my mother, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Fought alongside her. Priscilla von Riegan. She’s a force of nature.”

Claude loved how his mother’s name sounded in her native tongue. Keeping his gaze trained on the book, he asked, “How did you feel about her?”

“How did I feel? Lucky. Anyone would feel lucky to share the battlefield with Priscilla. She was smart and strong, but she had a sensitiveness about her. Very protective. Very trustworthy. She only wants the best for you, you know. I think she’s glad you came to the Alliance.”

While that was reassuring to hear, it wasn’t the answer he was after. “Was my mother liked? Would people stay with her no matter what?”

A rustle of fabric indicated Judith had sat forward in her chair. “What are you trying to get at?”

Claude folded the book shut and turned to face her. “She always seemed like an outsider to me. And I felt the same way. Father always fit in, but she and I never really had anyone but our family. Neither of us had many friends. And now I have none.

“I ran away from home for a reason. I couldn’t stand how they treated me. But people still treat me like I’m nothing. There’s no one I can trust like you trusted my mom, not that they’d have any reason to trust me back.”

“_Honestly_, boy.” Judith sighed, shaking her head. “Why don’t you _let_ yourself trust someone for once? If they betray you, they betray you. Even if they do, you might get more of a reward out of the relationship than you expect.”

“Don’t you see? That’s what I’m saying. It’s not worth the risk when I know that my life could be on the line. Why make myself unnecessarily vulnerable?”

“Then why did you ask me about it in the first place? And spill your heart out to me like that?”

Claude paused for a moment to process what she had just said. Then he said, quietly and under his breath, “Oh.”

“You wouldn’t have told me all of that if you didn’t trust me. Now, what do you think I’m going to do, really? Tell all of your family’s enemies in House Gloucester and banish you from setting foot in Daphnel territory?”

A chill ran down Claude’s spine. “Is this your attempt at being funny, Judith?”

She smiled and leaned back. “Of course I’m joking, Claude. There’s nothing wrong with having doubts, but put a little faith in people. Show them that vulnerable side you just showed me. It’ll really make people warm up to you if you don’t hide who you are.”

“That’s easier said than done.” Judith didn’t look like someone who had secrets like the ones Claude had to keep, ones that could change his social standing and others’ perspectives completely if they ever came to light. Alliance nobles were already suspicious enough of him. They didn’t need to have their suspicions confirmed.

“All right, suit yourself. Do it your own way. I know you will. You act so lax on the outside, but you have a streak of her stubbornness in you. And determination and diligence like nothing else.”

“You know me frighteningly well.” Right down to the feigned carefreeness. He didn’t think he was that transparent at all. He hoped it was just Judith herself who could see right through people.

“Because I knew Priscilla before I met you. Being friends with that woman prepared me to train someone who ended up as distant as she was.”

Ouch. She never minced words, that was for sure. “I’m not _that_ cold, am I?” He hoped he came off as friendly. Really, he did want to be more like his father, but it was hard when he couldn’t be sincere about that openness.

“Nah. She was never cold, just reserved. We all open up at different paces, you know. You say you haven’t had that many friends, and considering you have that trust problem, you’ll probably go a lot slower when you meet people important to you.”

“I suppose so.” Claude looked at the book in his lap. “I don’t even know where I could meet anyone.”

“Who knows? Maybe something’ll happen soon, and you’ll have a chance to meet other people your age. Chin up until then.” She got up from her seat and patted his shoulders with both hands. “Well, you’ve taken a break for long enough. Let’s get out there and train.”

Claude turned around to thank her for the conversation, but the door had already swung shut. He got up after a moment and followed, taking his bow and quiver full of arrows with him, stepping out into the afternoon sunlight.

—

_fate_

Three years after that conversation, Claude stands before the gates of Garreg Mach Monastery, two suitcases in his arms, filled with books and padded with clothing. His bow and quiver are slung across his back. Here is the border he will cross to meet people his own age from all over Fódlan, not just the Alliance but the Kingdom and Empire, too, and maybe even beyond. For the next year, he’ll be stuck here with these people. Some things he will continue to hide. Some things he cannot make them understand, and some memories he will lock away until it feels right to share them.

Living in Almyra, and then in the Alliance, for the two halves of his life led to a new perspective on the cruelest and kindest of each nation. He can’t teach anyone else to speak his language or see through his eyes. But he might teach them the importance of togetherness. Maybe shake up the Church by defying traditions of worship. And, he hopes, some of his classmates will grow to care for him enough that they’ll let him call them his friends. And though there’s only a sliver of a chance, he supposes maybe one day, someone will dream of the world in the same way he does: united, not divided.

He crosses the threshold into the courtyard and into his new life.


End file.
